By the time our church was founded, in 1859, there was an increased belief that sin must still be punished, and that redemption depended upon repentance. To discern the theology of our early church, clues can best be found in the sermons of James H. Tuttle (served 1866-1891) and Marion Shutter (1891-1939). Tuttle wrote The Field and the Fruit: A Memorial of 25 Years of Ministry with the Church of the Redeemer. (That
was our name during that time.) He wrestled in his sermons with the
relationship of sin and punishment. In a church that included the
wealthy leaders of early Minneapolis, he emphasized the responsibility
to the poor. For him, politics and society always were part of the
concern of religion.
His successor, Marion Shutter, was quite different from Tuttle, despite the fact that he had been handpicked. Shutter embraced science and evolution, arguing in “The Christian Life in the Modern World” against
tying one’s spirituality to dogma or any theological or economic system. Shutter’s concern was not whether Jesus was God or human, but rather what that story meant to us today.
